


Truth or Dare

by KLStarre



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - No One Is A Traitor, First Kiss, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pre-Canon, War Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:44:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5810533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dead Men walk into a bar...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth or Dare

Seven Dead Men walked into a bar. That had been several hours ago, at this point, and they were no longer entirely sure why they were at a bar-Shudder blamed Saracen-but they were there, that was the main thing, and they were all varying degrees of drunk, which was also an important point.

Hopeless, in fact, was so drunk that he was unconscious, Anton was so drunk that he was smiling and laughing with Ravel, and Saracen and Dexter had both drunk more than the rest of them combined, but were barely slurring their words.

Skulduggery appeared to be highly amused by the whole thing, and, therefore, it was probably him who suggested Truth or Dare.

Ravel was adamantly against it, as were Anton and Ghastly, but Vex, knowing that it could be an opportunity to make Saracen tell him his power, yelled over them until they shut up.  
He pointed vaguely at Skulduggery, finger wobbling a bit, and said, “You go first,” the slur in his voice barely noticeable.

Skulduggery tilted his head and took off his hat, brushing the lint off the brim of it before putting it back on. “Fine,” he said, his voice amused. “Erskine, truth or dare?”

It took Ravel a minute to realize that he was being talked to, and another few to process and decide. “Dare,” he said, perhaps not as assertively as he thought.

There was a very definite sense from Skulduggery that if he had a face he would be grinning. “I dare you to hug Shudder.”

Ravel stood up, wobbled, almost fell over, and sat back down again. “I don’t… I don’t think… I don’t think I can. He’sh too far away.” He smiled, seemingly proud of himself, and Skulduggery shook his head in his equivalent of eye rolling. Ghastly, who, knowing his limits, had spent the past two and a half hours nursing his second drink and was therefore entirely sober, stood, taking Ravel’s arm.

“Come on, idiot,” he said, helping him to stand and walk around Ghastly’s chair to Shudder. Shudder, however, was having none of it. He sat in his wooden chair, drink in front of him, arms crossed.

“No way,” he said. “There’sh absholutely no way.”

Saracen grinned and leaned forward, putting his whiskey down. “Oh, come on, Anton. You probably won’t even remember it in the morning.”

Shudder appeared to consider, tilting his back and forth, before he finally sighed.

“Fine. But I’m not shtanding up.”

Ravel leaned down and hugged him, Ghastly supporting him as Shudder glared. After a couple of seconds, Ravel let go and Ghastly led him back to his chair, where he collapsed.

Ghastly sat down in his place between Shudder and Ravel, and looked across the table at Skulduggery, who was sitting by Vex. “Ravel’s turn?”

Skulduggery nodded, and the seven of them-or the six that were conscious- looked at Ravel, waiting for him to speak. Eventually, when it became obvious that he wasn’t going to, Ghastly poked him, and he started. “Hmm? What? My turn?”

Saracen rolled his eyes and Vex elbowed him in the ribs as Ravel thought, and then he turned those odd golden eyes on Vex. “Dethter, tru..tru…truf or dare.”

Vex, who wasn’t and never had been drunk enough to take a dare from a _sober_ Ravel, much less one who was this close to getting alcohol poisoning, sighed. “Truth.”

Ravel grinned, and, after a second, said, “How’d you, how’d you get thoshe shcars on your back?”

Skulduggery leaned forward slightly, as did Ghastly and Shudder.

None of them seemed to notice Vex freeze, breath caught in his throat, until Saracen said, back straight, voice like ice, “You can’t make him answer that.”

Vex opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Ravel interrupted. “He’sh got to ansher. That’sh the..” He paused for a moment, forehead crinkled, obviously thinking, and then brightened. “The point! That’sh the point!”

Saracen stood up, sucking in his stomach and somehow managing to look a full six inches taller. “Don’t you dare make him answer that. He will, you know he will, his stupid pride won’t let him _not_ answer it unless you take it back.”

He looked like he was about to say more, but Vex reached up, placing a hand on Saracen’s arm.

“It’s fine. They deserve to know, and it’s not like anyone but Ghastly and Skulduggery will remember it anyway.”

Saracen looked at him for a long moment before sitting down.

“Alright,” he said. “It’s your choice.”

Vex took a deep breath. “They’re from my father. He…wasn’t a very cheerful person, and he didn’t want anyone else to be either, so…” he gestured widely, carefully keeping the emotions off his face, and then let his arms drop to a resounding silence.

Saracen reached to take Vex’s hand under the table, as he had so many times before, but stopped himself, resting his hand on the other man’s shoulder instead. Vex was tense and shaking, but he was doing a good job of hiding it, so Saracen lowered his voice to say, “It’s all right, Dex. Breathe.”

He felt him relax a bit underneath his hand, and then more when Ghastly said hesitantly from across the table, “Um. Vex, it’s your turn.”

There was the ghost of a smile on Vex’s face when he turned to Saracen, and the quaver in his voice was nearly undetectable. “Truth or dare, Saracen.”

Saracen rolled his eyes. “Dare, moron. You should know by now that I’ll never choose truth when it’s you asking.”

Vex sighed, disappointed but not surprised, and said, “I dare you to kiss Skulduggery.”  
Skulduggery jerked backwards, Ghastly put his face in his hands, Shudder and Ravel laughed, and Hopeless snored. Saracen, however, merely smiled, taking a deep breath before saying, “How about I kiss _you_ instead?”

The shock barely had time to register on Vex’s face before Saracen was leaning in and kissing him. He tasted of alcohol, and maybe it was the alcohol that made Vex kiss him back, losing himself in this man that he had refused to admit he loved for hundreds of years. Or maybe it was that somewhere in between Saracen yelling at Ravel and Saracen telling him it was okay, Vex had realized that he really _did_ love him.

And that was not something he wanted to hide.

 


End file.
